Collision Course
by tsutsuji
Summary: He looked like a Chain, but he didn't act like one. Apparently this stone-skinned beauty believed he was someone named "Xellos" playing a trick. Break was willing to pretend if it was easier to get him into bed that way. Break/Zelgadis! A Springkink fic.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Collision Course (1/2)

Author: Tsutsuji

Fandom: Pandora Hearts x Slayers crossover

Pairing: Xerxes Break x Zelgadis. with ... a few others implied.

Rating: I'm afraid it only makes it up to R. :(

Warnings: Somewhat dub-con due to mistaken identity; implied infidelity. Also crossover confusion, somewhat OOC, and various other sorts of silliness. Not beta'd.

Word count: 6870. Waaaay longer than I intended!

Written for Springkink for the prompt:_ July __18 - Crossover: Pandora Hearts/Slayers, Break/Zelgadis: mistaken identity, seduction - He looked like a Chain, but he certainly didn't act like one. Apparently this stone-skinned beauty believed him to be someone named "Xellos" playing a trick. Break was willing to pretend if it was easier to get him into bed that way. _

Summary: see prompt.

Notes: Basically a seiyuu joke - Akira Ishida does the voices for both Break and Xelloss. A few things are mentioned in passing that won't make much sense unless you're familiar with both fandoms, but I've tried to make it readable even if you only know one set of characters or the other.

Sorry got so long and rather silly at the end, and especially sorry that there isn't more porn.

* * *

You could say that it all happened because Zelgadis would insist on following every clue and rumor of a possible magical artifact or spell that he heard about, no matter how distantly relevant it seemed to his search for a way to look human again. Or you could always blame it on Xelloss for following Zelgadis around everywhere, with the excuse that the determined chimera-shaman might stumble upon some spell that would be of concern to the Mazoku. (After all, as Xelloss would explain if you asked him, by this time Zelgadis was nearly as adept at tracking down rumors of stray Claire Bible manuscripts as he was. But we all know that's just a convenient excuse.)

You could, possibly, blame it all on The Will of the Abyss, but that would probably be stretching things a little bit too far.

In any case, it almost certainly began the moment Zelgadis _Mega-Branded_ his way into the ruins of a library in an abandoned temple that was rumored to be cursed. There was not much there to catch his interest at first, but finally he paused in front of a single object. After a few minutes of staring at it, he turned his head, not quite far enough to glance back over his shoulder.

"If you're going to keep stalking me, stupid Mazoku, at least make yourself useful!"

That was an opening Xelloss couldn't pass up.

"Oh, my, Zelgadis-san!" he said, shimmering into physical space right behind him. "What part of me would you like to use today? I'm all yours!"

Zelgadis snorted. "Not that kind of useful, pervert," he muttered.

Xelloss saw the little flush bloom in his cheeks as he turned away. It never ceased to amuse him that bluish-colored stone skin could still turn such a delightful shade of pink. The fact that it wasn't accompanied by a casual Fireball also meant that he had some real chance of distracting Zelgadis away from his search today.

"Here," Zelgadis said, pointing at the object on a shelf in front of him. In the dusty ruins, the shiny new doll looked distinctly out of place. It had the brightest golden hair he'd ever seen on a doll or anything else, and about a million frills and ribbons and petticoats on its dress, and a disturbingly cheerful smile painted on its perfect little face. He had a feeling it would even make Princess Amelia shudder.

"Fascinating," Xelloss said, moving closer to look over Zelgadis' shoulder. He was not really interested at all, but it was an excuse to put his hand on the chimera's shoulder and lean up against his back.

Zelgadis glared back at him with the force of a Blast Bomb. Xelloss smiled a perfectly innocent smile and took a judicious step backwards. He made a point of studying the disgustingly cute toy very carefully.

"Ah yes, you're thinking of Joe and the Tower of Artemay!" he said, suddenly remembering a previous adventure involving disturbingly cute little dolls. "Lina-san was quite thorough; there's certainly nothing left of the puppet master who turned you into that cute little Zelga-bunny!" He smiled reassuringly.

Zelgadis glared again, quite predictably, at the reminder. Xelloss saw his chances of distracting him grow a little bit slimmer.

"So you don't detect any magical aura coming from this thing?" the shaman said, insistently returning to practical matters.

Xelloss was about to shake his head and assure him there was absolutely nothing uncanny about it, and then make another attempt to turn the conversation back to a more interesting topic, like how he could be far more "useful" than this, perhaps with his mouth. Then Zelgadis reached for the doll.

If Xelloss had been as human as his appearance made him out to be, his hair would have stood straight up on end. Even before Zelgadis actually touched it, he sensed a magical aura after all, as if something had been activated within it, and suddenly the thing felt distinctly _wrong_ to him in a way he couldn't identify. The innocent face of the doll seemed to have changed, the glassy eyes and empty smile taking on a sinister gleam, and it seemed to Xelloss' eyes to be surrounded by its own rapidly spreading shroud of darkness.

Zelgadis noticed some of this, too, but to Xelloss' alarm, that only increased his interest.

"Aha," he said softly, fascinated "I knew it! There's some unusual magical power hidden in this thing!"

"Zelgadis, give that to me!" he snapped, reaching in front of him. "It's not safe for you to touch! It's - "

_Otherworldly_ was the word that came to mind, but he didn't get a chance to say it. He reached across and got his hands on the doll a split second after Zelgadis' fingers touched it.

Which turned out to be exactly the wrong thing to do. If being touched by a human was enough to light the thing's magical fuse, being touched by a mazoku was apparently just what it needed to set it off.

The space around the doll opened up into a swirling vortex with Zelgadis right in the middle of it, like a whirlpool in physical space sucking him into its depths. Xelloss made a grab for him, but to his surprise the whirlpool was already sucking him in, too.

He would have dived into the vortex after Zelgadis anyway, but he lost his hold on both the chimera and the doll immediately. Zelgadis spun away from him, falling even faster than he was toward who knew what other dimension. The black nothingness between universes closed in around Xelloss, battering his senses until he could no longer hear or see or feel anything at all.

###

The first thing Zelgadis knew when the swirling weirdness finally stopped was that he was horizontal, and there was a smooth, flat surface under his back, and the air felt strange. He tried to move, but he couldn't even pry an eyelid open, say nothing of lifting an arm or raising his head.

"Oho, look what we have here! An escaped Chain, apparently!" said a voice somewhere above him, quite nearby - Xelloss' voice, softly gloating. The tone was certainly familiar, even if the words didn't make sense, but how often did Xelloss actually make sense, anyway? "So the rumors were true: there really is some connection to the Abyss from this place. "

Frustration with the mazoku and his endless pranks gave Zelgadis enough motivation to pry his eyes open, but after that it took all his energy to blink in surprise at what he saw. A strangely dressed man peered down at him with an eerie grin, one finger to his chin. Snow-white hair covered one side of his face, revealing only one red eye.

"Hm, not exactly what I was expecting, I have to admit," the man said. To Zelgadis' surprise, the familiar voice of the mazoku was coming from his unfamiliar mouth. "In fact, this one looks remarkably human!"

Zelgadis would have smirked if he could have managed it. _That_ certainly sounded familiar! Xelloss was constantly trying to convince him he didn't need to look for a cure for being part rock golem and part brow demon. Of course, that was probably just so that he would stop hunting for Claire Bible manuscripts and other magic that might be used against the mazoku. And possibly also trying to flatter him into bed - which worked far more often than Zelgadis liked to admit. No matter what it looked like, the voice and the gleam in that single eye were still the same.

"Shape-shifting again, Xelloss?" Zelgadis rolled his eyes. Even this took an effort, but he could tell his strength was starting to return. "At least you didn't turn into a woman this time," he muttered, thankful for that small favor. "But if you wanted to get me alone somewhere so desperately, couldn't you just extend an invitation for once?"

The face hovering above his seemed to pause for a moment, the single eye that he could see going round with surprise. Zelgadis smirked; apparently Xelloss thought he wouldn't catch on so quickly. Then, of course, the pale face broke into a grin. Even if the face was different, that infuriating little smile was perfectly familiar, too.

###

It might be mere coincidence that Xerxes Break happened to be following the rumor of a formerly unknown Way to the Abyss at the exact moment that Zelgadis had been shot through a dimensional vortex into his world. We certainly wouldn't want to put any of the blame on Liam Lunettes, his fellow Pandora agent, for doing the careful and diligent research that had led Break to be in that particular place at that particular moment.

Of course, as Xelloss had observed on a previous occasion, The Lord of Nightmares can be very capricious. But, personally, I wouldn't care to go pointing any fingers in _Her_ direction.

Be that as a it may, based on always-reliable Liam's information, Break had walked into this abandoned mansion fully prepared to meet up with an escaped Chain, one of those monstrous, human-devouring creatures of the Abyss. And at his first sight of a man-shaped being with a body apparently made of stone and hair made of silver wire, he quite reasonably assumed that's exactly what he'd found. It wasn't quite like any Chain he'd ever seen before, though. It was a surprisingly attractive stone body, for one thing, he caught himself thinking. It was also surprisingly weak for a Chain that had managed to claw its own way out of the Abyss without a human Contractor. But still, obviously, a Chain, by all appearances, he reminded himself firmly, no matter how... interesting it might look.

Then the creature opened very human and intelligent blue eyes to look up at him, and spoke. At that point, Break paused and reconsidered. The stone man looked like a Chain, but he wasn't acting like one. Certainly, some Chains could cast convincing illusions, and some even appeared completely human, but this one didn't seem to be trying to deceive him in any way that he would expect. The words he said didn't make much sense, but they didn't seem to be the familiar, sinister nonsense of the Abyss.

At any rate, he could easily dispel any such illusion born of the Abyss with his own Chain's power, along with dispelling this apparently low-powered Chain itself if necessary. But Break was too intrigued by this unusual specimen to do that just yet.

Shaking his head at something he seemed to find rather amusing, the stone skinned man began to push himself onto his elbows and sit up, slowly, with more grace than Break would have expected of a monster-man in a stone body. Better to not let it get to its feet, he thought, and besides, he was curious about a couple of things. So he stepped a little closer and pushed the tip of his walking stick against the stone man's chest. It was certainly hard as stone under the light colored tunic, making a dull thumb when he tapped his stick against it.

He was prepared to release a little of Hatter's power if it was needed to keep this creature down or to reveal its true form, but, stone or not, the man fell back easily. He landed on his back on the floor again with an "oof," and blinked in surprise at the cane that pinned him down. Break stepped across him and then dropped down on top of him, straddling his hips, and kept the tip of his walking stick firmly planted on the man's chest.

The blue eyes widened for a moment, but the stone man didn't appear terribly shocked to find Break suddenly sitting on him. He closed his eyes and shook his head again, and this time he laughed softly.

"You know, Xelloss, your idea of foreplay gets more annoying all the time," he said. He shifted his hips sharply, but rather than pushing Break off of him, the move almost seemed... suggestive.

It was Break's turn to blink in surprise, but after a second or two, he thought he understood. Apparently this attractive, stone-skinned young man - Break was no longer certain it was a Chain at all - thought he was someone named Xelloss playing a trick on him in order to seduce him.

This seemed to indicate that he was, in fact, as much worth seducing as he appeared to be. Break had no explanation for the man's unusual appearance, but given the intriguingly hard body that was shifting around under his, he decided that it might be worth playing along and finding out more about it - and, especially, if that meant he could get this stone-skinned beauty into bed. Metaphorically speaking, that is; the floor would do just as well as far as he was concerned.

He laid his walking stick across the man's chest and then leaned down, placing his hands on either side of the man's head. That happened to let his fingers slide along the metallic strands of hair; he found they were just as stiff and smooth as they appeared to be. Not the least bit of surprise registered in those remarkable blue eyes.

"_Pft!_" The man made a dismissive sound, staring up at him. "You really didn't need to change your form, you know."

To Break's delight, his voice had dropped to a low purr that sent a warm shiver up his spine. This was definitely going in the right direction, if only he could keep up the deception long enough.

"Oh, dear, you don't approve?" he said, pouting a little. "I thought you might like it..."

It seemed to be the right thing to say, and even the right way to say it. The stone-skinned man grinned up at him indulgently.

"Well, since you went to all the trouble! I suppose I can't knock it until I've tried it," he said.

"Exactly!" Break exclaimed happily. "That's what I was thinking!"

This wasn't entirely accurate. What he was really thinking about was how stone skin might feel rubbing against his own, and how it would taste, and whether it would be sensitive at all, and how this man would react to anything he did. He was already enjoying the feel of the hard but mobile body moving under his thighs.

However, he was completely surprised when the man reached up and curled one stony hand around the back of his neck, and then pulled him the rest of the way down to kiss.

Break quickly discovered that, even if the man was stone all over on the outside, his lips were pliant and his mouth was warm and wet. And before they'd been kissing for long, Break had definitely figured out a few more important things about him: he was definitely not a Chain, and he had a very hot thing going with this Xelloss person, whoever he was. And also, Break realized, he was more than a little bit jealous of this Xelloss person.

Fortunately for him, he was here and Xelloss wasn't.

* * *

_hm, where is Xelloss, come to think of it? Good question! Find out the answer in part 2!_


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Collision Course (2/2)  
Author: tsutsuji  
Rating: R  
Warnings: dub-con due to mistaken identity, implied infidelity. not beta'd.  
See notes and summary in part 1.

part 2

Xelloss struggled to make his way through the vortex, blindly; it was like trying to swim through inky gel, and more disorienting than the pocket dimension where the Claire Bible had been hidden. All he could do was to follow the dim trace of Zelgadis' spirit that he could detect with his astral senses, and he nearly lost that for a while as it steadily got further ahead of him. Then, to his relief, it began to become stronger again. It felt as if Zelgadis had stopped moving and he was getting closer.

He was getting weak from the exertion of moving through this resistant darkness, and starting to worry about being so far from his own world and the nourishment of the astral plane, when he finally noticed that physical reality was coming into view again. It felt distinctly different than the physical plane he was used to visiting when he took on human form. There was some kind of dark, chaotic energy in the vicinity as well; it had a strange taste, but he could feed off its negative aura a little, enough to regain some of his lost strength.

Most importantly, he sensed Zelgadis close by. With a final effort, gulping in whatever stray miasma he could find, he pulled himself up to the brink of the physical plane. He didn't have quite enough power left to take form there, at least not yet, but he could see and hear, and he could sense living beings on the other side. Two of them were quite nearby, in fact. One of them was certainly Zelgadis. The other...

The scene came into view, still a little blurry to his unfocused senses, but clear enough. The first thing he noticed, of course, was Zelgadis, who was flat on his back on the floor in one of the rooms of a large dwelling. There were little flickers of other human lives moving around somewhere nearby, he thought, like small specks dancing around on the edge of his astral vision. But right in front of him, along with Zelgadis, there was another man, who was, at that moment, pinning Zelgadis to the floor with his body and with a staff of some sort. He could see a faint magical glow around the man, or connected to him in some way; it seemed to be of the same odd color-taste as the chaotic energy he was feeding off of.

He wondered for a moment if Zelgadis was going to need rescuing. Unfortunately, if he did, it was going to have to wait a few more minutes while he got his strength back. Apparently that wasn't going to be necessary, though, because instead of fighting the strange man off of him, the chimera dragged his head down and started kissing him. The strange man didn't resist in the least. Not that Xelloss could blame him.

"My, my," Xelloss said to himself. He frowned for a moment, undecided whether to be disturbed or aroused by this unexpected sight. Then Zelgadis rolled like a wave under the other man, sensually pressing up against him. Xelloss had _felt_ that particular move a few times, not quite as often as he might have liked, but he'd never actually _seen_ Zelgadis do it before.

As arousing as it was to watch, he couldn't help feeling annoyed. After all, the chimera hadn't even been in this other world very long, as far as he could reckon the passing of time since they'd entered the vortex. It had taken him months of almost continual effort to get Zelgadis to give in to him, and he still had to work to get him into this position almost every time. It seemed impossible that Zelgadis already knew this strange man in a totally different world, so why was he kissing him so easily?

The kiss ended gradually; the white haired man (oddly attractive, Xelloss admitted grudgingly) made an appreciative, mildly surprised sound in his throat, and settled a little more - possessively - on top of Zelgadis. The chimera didn't let him pull back very far, though, and shifted underneath him, teasingly. Xelloss knew _that_ move, too.

"So, Xelloss, now that you've gotten your way as usual, tell me: where the hell are we, anyway? I assume this was all your doing! How did we get here, and how do we get back?"

If he'd been in his human form at that moment, Xelloss' jaw would have dropped open to the floor. Zelgadis thought this man was _him_? Had his senses been addled by the trip through the vortex, or had this white-haired stranger somehow dazzled him?

The explanation came a second later when the man answered with his own voice, or nearly so, and with exactly the same kind of answer he would give.

"I have no idea!" he said cheerfully.

Zelgadis accepted this with the reaction Xelloss would have expected, if it really had been him.

"Tch," he said. "Are you saying this really wasn't some plan of yours? I'm not sure I believe that, but if it's true, we really should be figuring out what happened and how we're going to get back... "

He did not sound quite as eager to follow up on that line of inquiry as Xelloss thought he should be. Possibly that was because the stranger, by some annoyingly accurate instinct, chose that moment to lick along his jaw up to his ear, and Zelgadis' eyes fell half closed.

"We can do all that later?" the man said, wheedling a little, which was precisely what Xelloss would have said and done in his place.

Xelloss almost had to admire the guy; as annoying as it was, his seductive instincts were excellent. And he was fairly interesting to look at, as ordinary humans went, at least as far as Xelloss could see. It was definitely a form that he might have expected to appeal to Zelgadis, if he'd experimented more with shape shifting - which was what Zelgadis must have assumed he was doing.

That made it almost acceptable; after all, it was almost like watching Zelgadis with himself. And that was a surprisingly arousing idea.

Voyeurism finally won out over any other options. After all, there wasn't much else he could do at the moment. But now that he thought about it, he wasn't so sure he'd interrupt the proceedings even if he could.

With that thought, Xelloss grinned and settled back to enjoy the show for a while. He'd just have to convince Zelgadis to make it up to him later.

###

This might be a convenient moment to mention that there were, indeed, other humans in the general vicinity, just as Xelloss detected. Specifically, there were a handful of other members of Pandora who had accompanied Xerxes Break on his investigation of this suspicious location, which Liam's research had brought to their attention. Most of the others were still checking around the grounds and outbuildings first, however, all prudently keeping in sight of one another in case of any sudden trouble. Only one other person had entered this particular building by this time, after he'd noticed that Break had, as usual, gone off on his own, against both protocol and common sense.

"Xerxes Break!" Liam muttered, both nervous and irritated as he glanced around the foyer of the mansion. The place was certainly long abandoned, with a layer of dust and debris scattered across the floor of the empty room. Enough dust to see footprints. The single trail of them led away from the main entrance and circled the room, passing several doorways that led out of the foyer, but it didn't continue into any of the rooms beyond.

Liam adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose, scowled, and set out to follow the trail up the broad staircase to the shadowy upper floor. Exactly where he would rather not go if there was any chance of an escaping Chain suddenly popping up, and therefore, of course, exactly where Break would go first. "You just delight in making things difficult for me, don't you!"

###

Xerxes Break - comfortable in the assumption that the well-trained agents of Pandora would spend at least another half an hour securing the grounds before clomping into the main building en masse - was at that moment walking his fingers up the stone-covered body lying underneath his, from the man's waist to his upper chest, incidentally pushing his sand-colored tunic out of the way as he did so. He was watching rather carefully for two things: the man's reaction (which was so far nothing but positive) and the unpleasantly familiar sign of an illegal contract with a Chain marked on his skin. He was relieved to find that there was no telltale dark circle, like the empty face of a sinister clock waiting to be painted in, over his heart. That would have complicated matters all over again.

As it was, he only had to worry about keeping up this charade for a while longer. That meant he had to appear to be not very surprised by anything he saw as he uncovered more of the man's body, and had to pretend that the wonderful movement of stones and rough skin over well-toned muscle was a perfectly familiar sight. He had no way of knowing how many liberties this Xelloss person was normally allowed, but it was starting to look like he was allowed quite a lot, judging by the way the man kept moving under him, and by the way those remarkably agile, rough-skinned fingers were gripping his shoulders and back, encouraging him onward in his exploration. He didn't seem particularly surprised that Break had his shirt pushed up and was starting to push his pants down. Only at that point, the man began to make some rather half-hearted attempts at resistance, as if he thought he should stop all this but didn't really want to.

Break slowed down a little, reluctantly, just in case. It was particularly interesting to notice that even stone skin was somehow flexible enough to accommodate arousal. He took the chance of running the palm of his hand over the man's erection, which by now was quite obvious under his light trousers, and grinned when that brought on a hiss of pleasure. The man threw his head back, and his whole body rippled underneath Break's again.

Break wasn't made of stone, but he was pretty hard himself, at least in that one area.

"Damn it, Xelloss, how do you always manage to get your way?" the man growled, although he hardly seemed as irritated as he sounded.

"I do, don't I!" he said, laughing a little, because it was just as true of him as it apparently was of that Xelloss he kept mentioning. In fact, Break thought suddenly, it was exactly the kind of thing Liam would say of him under similar circumstances. That thought made him grin even more broadly.

This was probably why he was caught off guard when the man suddenly gripped his arms and flipped him over onto his back, and rolled right over on top of him, pinning him to the floor. He stared up in shock, wondering if the game was up, but before he could wonder for long, the man was kissing him again, deep and hard this time.

Break moaned and kissed him back with equal enthusiasm. The contrast of the rough skin under his hands and the soft heat of the man's mouth was remarkably arousing, for some reason he didn't bother to analyze. That stony-rough erection that he'd felt up so cautiously a moment ago now rubbed alongside his through his clothing, and the man chuckled when that made him moan again and writhe around underneath him. It was actually a little alarming now that he was on the bottom, but he could hardly believe they'd actually get that far, anyway. He honestly wasn't sure he was going to last much longer, but the stone-skinned man he'd thought was so weak before had apparently recovered his strength now, and he didn't seem to be in any hurry. He seemed more comfortable in his current position than Break had guessed he would be.

That made him wonder if the mysterious unknown Xelloss was actually used to taking that stone-covered cock, and what the hell his normal appearance must be if he was able to do that. He almost thought he might want to meet the man some day. Just not right this minute.

###

Zelgadis was slightly surprised at the response he was getting after changing their positions, but it wasn't entirely unexpected. Xelloss had allowed himself to be taken this way a few times in the past, or rather, had manipulated Zelgadis into it, on his own terms - not that Zelgadis had objected in the least. He'd never been quite this compliant before, though, and Zelgadis decided he rather liked it this way. Maybe it went with this new appearance he'd taken on.

Zelgadis still wasn't entirely sure what he thought of that, either. Even though he could take on any shape he wanted, Xelloss had only changed his appearance before as a way of teasing him, and they'd never actually had sex with him in any form other than the familiar purple-haired, violet-eyed trickster he knew all too well.

Now that he noticed, though, there was a great deal more to the transformation than the color of hair and skin and a change of clothing. The body beneath his was smaller and thinner than usual, too, almost delicate under the long coat and jacket and shirt that covered him. The pale skin seemed thin, as if he could tear it easily with his rough skin.

In fact, he noticed suddenly, there was already a bruise forming where Zelgadis had gripped his chin while kissing him. An ordinary, purple bruise. That was a little startling; Xelloss didn't usually bother to keep his human form that accurate when they were alone together.

An odd feeling crept up Zelgadis' spine, battling with the eager hum of arousal that coursed through his nerves at the same time.

"Xelloss?" he said. He pulled back and took a closer look at the pale face, brushing the soft strands of hair aside. "Why did you ..."

The man beneath him flinched at his touch, jerking to pull his head away. A distinctly _human_ reaction, but it was too late. The hair that Zelgadis now realized had been carefully arranged to cover the left half of his face at all times had fallen aside, revealing an empty eye socket.

Zelgadis stared at it, his mind reeling as if he was still being spun through the madly swirling darkness that had brought him here. Even if he could have somehow believed that the missing eye was part of the elaborate trick that Xelloss was playing on him, the expression of dismay on the man's face was purely, terribly human.

He should have known all along, he realized, when he saw that one red eye. In any form Xelloss had ever taken, no matter how human or how strange, the mazoku had always appeared with distinctive, beautiful, amethyst-colored eyes.

"You - you're not Xelloss?" he gasped.

He scrambled backward, horrified, tangled in his half-removed clothing. The man smiled sadly, apologetically even, and lightly touched his own face above the missing eye.

"My my! I'm glad you finally noticed that, Zelgadis-san!"

_"Xelloss!" _he roared at the unseen source of the voice. It was certainly the real one this time, and it sounded far too amused.

Before the name was out of his mouth, the white-haired man moved, almost too quickly for Zelgadis to follow. In an instant he had rolled to the side, picked up the walking stick he'd used to pin Zelgadis down earlier, and raised it to point in the direction of Xelloss' voice.

"Ah, then you are a Contractor after all, and your Chain has finally appeared!" he said. "Well then!"

A blast of some kind of dark, chaotic energy shot out from the end of his cane. Or rather, Zelgadis realized a second later, from something within the man himself, only directed at its target by the stick in his hands. For a second, he seemed to see another being looming above the white haired man; a gigantic, grinning, not quite human form, like something from a drug-induced nightmare.

A second later, he was even more astonished to see Xelloss fall to his knees as if he'd just been dropped out the sky, or out of astral space, more likely, where he'd evidently been hiding. And, apparently, watching.

Zelgadis snarled, ready to unleash his own spell against the damnably annoying trickster. But Xelloss toppled forward before he could even think of the words, and remained there on hands and knees, shaking visibly. It wasn't another trick; his face registered as much shock as Zelgadis felt.

His fury at being tricked vanished instantly.

"Xelloss!" he cried, this time in alarm. Concern for Xelloss, obviously weakened and possibly even injured by some attack he couldn't fathom, grew into dread. What else was this man capable of, he wondered, if he was powerful enough to attack a mazoku on the astral plane and damage him without even a word being uttered? What kind of world had that crazy magical artifact brought them to? He tried to think of a defensive spell, but he didn't even know if his own magic would work here.

"What the hell is going on?" he growled, turning on the man. "Who are you..."

He stopped, finally surprised beyond words, when the stick fell from the man's hand and clattered to the floor at his feet. A spasm shook his body and he clutched his mouth, retching up blood. In spite of the alarming power he'd just wielded - or, more than likely, because of it - Zelgadis realized that he was actually just as delicate as he appeared, after all.

In spite of himself, he started to rush forward as the man's legs buckled and he fell - but there was already someone else there, catching him as he went down. Zelgadis caught a glimpse of cinnamon-red hair and the flash of a pair of spectacles before the newcomer huddled down over the other, the tails of his long black coat spreading across the dusty floor behind him.

"Xerxes Break!" the newcomer exclaimed, in a tone of mixed irritation and concern that Zelgadis thought he might have used on Xelloss once or twice in the past, or possibly even in the last few minutes. It took him a few seconds to realize that this was probably the man's name.

"Ah, Liam!" The white haired man grinned weakly, his face more pale than ever in contrast to the blood staining his chin. "When did you get here?"

Liam drew back a little and, to Zelgadis' surprise, glared at him.

"As a matter of fact, Xerxes, I've been here for _some time,_" he snapped.

"Ah, I thought I noticed someone hanging back near the door a few minutes ago," Xelloss said. His voice still shook a little as he sat back on the floor and crossed his legs, but he was smiling a terribly smug smile. "Where you enjoying the show as much as I was - Liam-san, is it?"

"I certainly was not!" Liam replied, sharply enough to cut glass.

"Oh, my," Xerxes Break murmured. "Liam-san, did you catch an eyeful of something you weren't meant to see?"

He sounded surprisingly amused for a man who had just collapsed in a shaky heap on the floor, to say nothing of having just been caught nearly having sex with a stranger by someone who, Zelgadis suspected, might be his lover.

In fact, he sounded more like Xelloss than ever. Which reminded Zelgadis, suddenly, that Xelloss had apparently been hovering somewhere nearby and watching him all this time, while he... while they...

Bristling, Liam jerked backward and let Break fall onto his butt on the floor, at the same time that Zelgadis turned and glared at Xelloss.

"How dare you!" they both snapped in perfect unison.

A startled sort of silence followed, with only the sound of Break trying not to cough and Xelloss trying not to giggle, and of Zel and Liam breathing hard as they tried to get their fury under control.

"Do _you_ know what's going on here?" Zelgadis finally managed to ask.

Liam looked up at him, eyes wide and blinking behind his glasses, momentarily startled by finding the question directed at him. But then he got hold of himself; he pushed his glasses back up on his nose from where they'd slipped when he was snapping at Break; and nodded once.

"Possibly," he said. "I expect it's because of that."

He pointed at something on the floor in a corner of the room. After peering at it a moment; Zelgadis recognized it as the doll he'd found in the ruins back in his own world, but it looked a bit singed now. Break peered at it curiously as well, and Xelloss made a noise of disapproval in his throat at the sight of it. Evidently this whole thing really wasn't his idea.

"It came from here, I take it?" Zelgadis asked. "From this... this world?"

Liam nodded again.

"Probably; or rather; it probably came from the Abyss, another dimension that's connected to our world in certain places. This building seems to be one of those places. There are a few stories in the archives - I always assumed they were just lunatic ravings but perhaps not - stories of strange people or beings appearing out of the Abyss who claim to have come from a different dimension entirely, a different reality. Apparently the Abyss sometimes connects to worlds other than our own."

Break looked startled by this information. "This world isn't trouble enough!" he muttered.

"What happened to them?" Xelloss asked. "The people from other worlds, that is? Are there stories that tell how they managed to return to their own realities?"

"No, of course not, but that doesn't mean they didn't," Liam answered testily.

"Of course, there wouldn't be," Zelgadis said; following Liam's thought. "If they were able to return successfully, or if anyone from your world ended up in ours, they wouldn't be here to leave a record of it."

"Ah!" Xelloss said. "Naturally!"

Zelgadis glared at him. He smiled as sweetly as a mazoku possibly could, and when the glare didn't subside, he tried pouting instead.

He was almost adorable like that. Zelgadis remembered how much he'd liked believing that it really was Xelloss acting so pliant and submissive under him. He turned away from the mazoku quickly, before he could see the reaction that idea caused.

"Can you show me these archives?" he asked Liam, forcibly turning his mind to more practical matters. "Perhaps I can find some clue in them about how to get back to our own world."

Liam's mouth dropped open; apparently the idea of letting a stranger into their archives was shocking beyond words. But a second later he frowned and nodded, nervous but determined.

"I'll... I'll smuggle you into the library somehow! But this will have to be kept secret from the rest of Pandora and the Duke houses," he said. "If they hear of it, they'll want to study both of you and find out more about this."

"Liam-san!" Break said. He sounded delighted. "That's quite subversive, coming from you!"

"Be quiet Xerxes," Liam said huffily. "You're certainly not helping matters!"

"Perhaps I could..." Xelloss began, but Zelgadis turned on him, and this time the glare shut him up immediately.

"You are not helping matters, either, Xelloss!" he snapped.

Liam stood up and brushed the dust off his long coat.

"Come on, this way," he said to Zelgadis.

He flinched a little nervously when Zelgadis actually did come closer, but then tipped his head and studied him curiously for a moment before quickly turning away again. Zelgadis guessed he must be wondering why on earth Break had been rolling around on the floor with him like that, considering his horrid appearance.

"There's a back entrance," Liam said. "I'm sure the others have cleared that area by now. At least they should have if they're following procedure - unlike some!" He gave Break another stabbing glance.

"Does he... do this kind of thing a lot, then?" Zelgadis asked cautiously as Liam gestured him toward the door.

"Not _this_ kind of thing, exactly," Liam admitted. His cheeks were so pink that Zelgadis felt sorry for asking. "However," he continued indignantly, "he excels at making me lose my temper!"

"Ah! They have that in common as well, then," Zelgadis sighed, with one last glare back at Xelloss before he followed Liam out of the room.

###

Xelloss and Break sat there on the floor in silence for a moment, staring at the door after the two of them left.

"Oh my," Xelloss said softly. "Don't tell me! Where they...?"

"Bonding?" Break completed the thought for him. "Mm, yes, I'm afraid they were. How very..."

"Irritating," Xelloss finished. Break nodded.

They both turned at the same time and glared, with considerable magical force, at the charred and battered doll lying in a heap in the corner. It was a wonder the thing didn't go up on flames.

"This is _all your_ _fault_!" they said with one unified voice.

~~the end~~


End file.
